The present invention relates generally to fixtures for fitting long members such as grommets and wire harness to stationary portions such as hinges and panels.
In a vehicle, for example, a number of wires such as cables and wire harness and a number of long members such as grommets for protecting the wires passed through the grommets are provided in a prescribed arrangement. In the case of some long member, a relatively soft plastic clip, or a band clip, for example, is fitted to a desired part of the long member in order to avoid its contacting and interfering with another member and by attaching the clip to a vehicle body, the arranged condition (routing) of the long member is decided.
More specifically, in case that a long member is a substantially circular wire harness, the band portion of a clamping band clip is wound on the desired part of the wire harness and the band clip is joined (attached) to the panel of the vehicle body, whereby the wire harness is latched so as to decide the route of the wire harness. When the route of the wire harness is thus decided, the wire harness is allowed to avoid contacting another member, for example, and when such another member is installed later, such another member as another long member or equipment can readily be installed and prevented from becoming entangled with still another member.
Incidentally, a clip, or a band clip, for example, is used as a fixture for holding the long member above and often formed of relatively soft plastics. However, there is a demand for fixtures capable of holding long members more firmly than hand clips, whereupon the present applicant for patent has proposed a fixture 60 as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9. As shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, the fixture 60 includes two divided bodies 62 and 63 whose end portions on one side are coupled together by a coupling hinge 61 and end portions on the other are detachably joined, a fitting portion 64 installed so as to surround the outer periphery of a long member and a mounting portion 68 including a pair of clamping parts 66 and 67 for clamping the opposed sides (faces) of a panel or a hinge such as a flat plate like hinge 65 rectangular in cross section, the fixture 60, being molded from comparatively high-quality synthetic resin. This fixture 60 is fit for use in holding a grommet for protecting wire harness provided in a prescribed arrangement between the panel of a vehicle body and a movable panel, for example, because the hinge 65 can firmly be fitted to the fixture 60.
More specifically, among electric wires such as wire harness, some wire is used for wiring a section between the panel of the vehicle body and the movable panel such as a door or a trunk panel and these electric wires like wire harness, for example, are protected with grommets that are long members made of elastic material such as rubber. Consequently, it has been proposed to form a grommet of the sort mentioned above into a bellows so that when the movable panel is closed, the grommet in a curved condition can be housed in a grommet housing portion and to attach the fixture 60 to a desired part of the grommet such that the grommet can be housed in the grommet housing portion without being sandwiched between the panel of the vehicle body and the movable panel when the movable panel is closed and that the fixture 60 is fitted to the flat platelike hinge 65 rectangular in cross section.
Though the fixture 60 proposed above can firmly be fitted to the hinge 65, it is not necessarily easy to attach the fixture 60 to the hinge 65, that is, the fitting workability is poor. The mounting portion 68 of the fixture 60 is, to put it concretely, formed so that its length is set substantially equal to the width of the hinge 65 and has a flat platelike contact portion 69 making face-to-face contact with one side of the hinge 65 and a pair of clamping parts 66 and 67 provided along the direction in which the clamping parts 66 and 67 cross the contact portion 69 at substantially right angles on the respective end portions of the contact portion 69. The pair of clamping parts 66 and 67 are respectively folded back toward the contact portion 69 at substantially right angles from positions separated by a length substantially equal to the thickness of the hinge 65 so as to form U-shapes in cross section including both the front end portions of the contact portion 69.
In order to fit the mounting portion 68 to the hinge 65, part of the one side of the hinge 65 is made to contact the inner side of one clamping part 66 and then the other clamping part 67 is pressed against the other side of the hinge 65 so that the other side of the hinge 65 is introduced into the other clamping part 67 because the other clamping part 67 is flexible. At the same time, the one clamping part 66 is moved such that the one side of the hinge 65 slides on the face of the one clamping part 66 and the inner face of the one clamping part 66 makes face-to-ace contact with the one edge face of the hinge 65, whereby the fixture 60 can be fitted to the hinge 65.
However, assuming that the one clamping part 66 is fixedly held when the other side of the hinge 65 is pressed (pushed) in the other clamping part 67 from a condition in which part of the one side of the hinge 65 is caused to contact the inner side of the one clamping part 66, the one side edge of the hinge 65 in contact with the inner face of the one clamping part 66 slides along the inner face of the one clamping part 66. In case that the hinge 65 is made of metal and a sharp edge is formed on the one side of the hinge 65, the edge expected to slide on the inner face of the one clamping part 66 may cut into the inner face of the clamping part 66 and the hinge 65 may also be hardly pressed in between the clamping parts 66 and 67, so that the fitting of the fixture 60 may not simply be carried out.